


Rebuilding

by j_marquis



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post Revelation, no that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11265780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/pseuds/j_marquis
Summary: A present for a friend.In which Xander wishes he could hate the perpetual perfection of the new Emperor of Hoshido.





	Rebuilding

The delegation from Hoshido wasn't quite a surprise. Xander had received the missives and the request for rooms, he had just, well. He had forgotten. And when the Emperor himself was at the doorstep of the new castle in the center of Nohr's capitol, he was taken just the smallest bit by surprise.

"Lord Ryoma, I must admit you caught be off guard." Xander confessed, "With all the goings on here, I may have forgotten about your visit."

"Apologies." Ryoma smiled, and for a moment he looked like he meant it. Xander still wasn't sure that Ryoma meant anything. No one could be that good, that kind, that understanding, all the time. "Though the new castle is, well, nice. A welcome change from the desolation of your former home."

"There were too many memories in that place." Xander walked through the new hall alongside Ryoma, wondered once again at the strange miracles that brought them to this odd civility. And a smell like the blossoms of the cherry trees that grew in such abundance in Hoshido. A place that smelled of flowers, where the sun shone not too bright, where the cold never struck too harsh. Not like home. And though they had torn down his father's castle, though they had opened Nohr more to it's people, built a smaller castle in it's place, they still struggled against the elements, still tried too hard to bring peace and help to their people. The war may have been ended, but the trouble that brought them to such desperation remained.

"I understand." Ryoma still held a sincerity Xander wanted to doubt. Wished he could doubt. But it was a real concern, a real furrow in his strong brow, truth to the sink of his shoulders. And Xander almost missed the hatred he had been allowed to fester before the tenuous peace Corrin had brought. Almost missed being able to assume Ryoma meant nothing of the kindness he spewed, the vague affections he seemed to grant Xander whenever they met face to face.

"All the same," Ryoma moved the topic effortlessly, all the welcome diplomacy he had been bred to wield, "I wanted to bring the orchard starters myself, and offer my services in being sure they will thrive in the Nohrian climate."

"Don't you have a country to run?" Xander allowed himself to quirk a smile.

"Hinoka and Takumi can take care of it for now, I don't need to be there in person. Besides, offering a diplomatic hand to Nohr in it's rebuilding is good for us, it will encourage our people to do the same."

Xander resisted the urge to groan aloud. Of course Ryoma was right, Of course he had considered the ramifications of staying, and decided, rather without Xander's input or permission that he was going to invite himself, help them build an orchard to grow new crops, to hopefully bring agriculture back to Nohr. And of course Ryoma wanted to do it himself.

"You can farm an orchard?" He expressed disbelief. But it wouldn't have surprised him, all the same. The Hoshidans seemed preternaturally good at everything.

"Well, no. But I read about it. I understand the theory." Ryoma admitted.

"The great Emperor Ryoma of Hoshido cannot do something? Well, that is alarming." Xander teased, but there was no malice behind it, he found. He had no malice, anymore, towards Ryoma. "I'm sure I will be able to help. I used to help Elise tend a small garden at the Northern Fortress."

"Look at us," Ryoma did smile then, soft and sweet and genuine, "The rulers of our realm, building an orchard."

"Do you think a King too low for gardening?" Xander attempted to look cross through his smile.

Ryoma was not, in fact, too low for gardening. They had found a hilltop outside the capitol city that got enough sunlight, they thought, that the apple orchard would survive, and brought the saplings there. And the two men, out of their royal finery and in commoner's sturdy leathers and boots, set themselves to work. Just the two of them, the rest of the country had work to do, had rebuilding of their own. So the King and the Emperor tilled the earth in comfortable quiet.

The Nohrian sun was too hot when it remembered to shine on the country at all. Xander was accustomed to it, his shirt was loose, allowed for air flow and light to reflect the scalding sun. Ryoma had no such foresight. The Hoshido climate was, like all things in their country, annoyingly good.

He even managed to look good when relieving himself of his shirt, using the discarded fabric to wipe sweat from his face. "How do you manage to work in this climate?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Without taking my clothes off."

"It's hotter than the bowels of a dragon."

"You say this like you have a point of reference for the average climate in the bowel structure of a dragon." Xander laughed, if only to distract himself from the sight of Ryoma shirtless, pouring water from the well at the top of the hill on his long hair to cool off. It dripped down his face, over his shoulders and beading in long eyelashes.

Everything about Hoshido was perfect. Even their newest leader. Xander wanted to make war all over again, if only for the injustice of it all.

Ryoma glanced over, smiled. "Is something wrong, Lord Xander?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I was merely taking a moment to enjoy the view from here." He supposed it was a bit more blatant than he could have been, but it could have meant anything. The bustling marketplace at the bottom of hill, the saplings ready for planting, the newly tilled earth and the smell of the dirt and the planting soil and the summer air. The view could have nothing to do with the finely worked tone of Ryoma's muscles, the drip of the clear water down his unmarred skin, the beads of sweat and water like tiny crystals in his unkempt hair.

Xander was not above admitting that he appreciated beauty in all it's forms, masculine and feminine alike. He was not above admitting that he would take a lover of any gender if he so desired. Not that he often desired.

"Are you? Perhaps when we're finished here we can share a meal and you can enjoy it a little more." Ryoma knew, it seemed, what he was doing. Even his intuition was perfect.

It would be so, so easy to hate him. What was harder, Xander found, was learning he didn't hate him at all.


End file.
